Downton Abbey: The Exhibition has landed in Boston at The Castle at Park Plaza for an extremely limited three month run. An appropriately themed afternoon tea was held on Friday, June 14th, featuring Executive Chairman of Carnival Films, Gareth Neame, and members of the press and socialites (aka social media influencers).

…there is an extended train fight, daresay, ‘train battle’ that of course perked me right up! Lots of metal for Magneto to play with in a train fight!

One of SNL's newest cast members is rising star Chris Redd. Chris is also known for appearing on Netflix' Disjointed and in movies Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping opposite Andy Samberg, The House and A Futile and Stupid Gesture. Yesterday, Redd dropped his new album But Here We Are on Comedy Central Records (available everywhere).

Last year, we talked to Jimmy Palmiotti (Jonah Hex, Painkiller Jane, Marvel Knights)about hisKickstarter project,Hype.After the project reached it’s goal, I couldn’t wait to get the full story in my hands. The superhero sci-fi action graphic novel is available next Wednesday, January 24th.

Hypeis the story of superhero Noah Haller and behavioral genetics scientist Amanda Marr. What is special about Noah, and the story, is that when his body is activated to perform an essential mission, he’s only given an hour a day to perform that task before needing to recharge and regenerate his cells.

Harvey-Award winning comic creators David Gallaher (High Moon, Convergence: Green Lantern Corps) and Steve Ellis (High Moon, Hulk, Breaking Bad) have dubbed their studio Bottled Lighting and judging by the success of the comics they produce this is an appropriate name!

David joins us today to talk aboutThe Only Living Boy: Volume Onewhich is coming to bookstores everywhere fromPapercutz.

The Only Living Boystarted as a webcomic and was previously printed in a Kickstarter campaign before being collected in the upcoming edition.

David took the time to talk with us today to tell us the origin of this comic and more below as how Bottled Lightning came to be!

FOG!:I’ve just finished the first volume ofThe Only Living Boyand I can’t believe what I’ve been missing! How has the community support from Kickstarter to the webcomics helped you guys get the book to the people?

David Gallaher:First of all, thank you. Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

Technology has enabled us to reach everybody who has an internet connection and we love the digital community that has helped bringThe Only Living Boyto the forefront.

We’ve been able to offer the series through so many different platforms — Kickstarter, Tapastic, Noisetrade, Tumblr, comiXology, Humble Bundle — and the response has been extraordinary. We’ve have over 200,000 readers across platforms and that’s been really special to us.

For the uninitiated,Jimmycurrently writesHarley Quinnfor DC Comics with his wife, Amanda Conner, as well asAll-Star Western(and formerlyJonah Hex) with Justin, and started the Marvel Knights Imprint with Joe Quesada; as well as many television and movie credits to his name includingPainkiller Jane.

When it comes to creator-owned comics, Jimmy gives us good reason for fans to support the books they love from creators they care about, so read on to learn aboutHype, a new superhero that only limited time to get his mission accomplished—much like the target goal on his new Kickstarter!

If you are in the area, be sure to catch up with Jimmy at theLong Beach Comic Expothis weekend! LBCE is one of the most creator-friendly conventions in the country that celebrates comic books and pop culture and diversity.

Aloha, comics fans! As if the embarrassment of riches for comic book properties on TV weren’t enough, one of our favorite creators, B. Clay Moore (Bad Karma, JSA: The Liberty Files, Bloodshot) is exercising options that go beyond choosing a banana hammock or full trunks.

His first comics creation,Hawaiian Dickis in development at NBC with Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) and we’ll also see morefloppyHawaiian Dickfrom Image Comics very soon.

In this, our double-entendre dipped interview with B. Clay we get to hang ten on the new Kickstarter for the 100 page hardcover,Great Big Hawaiian Dick.

Get out a tiki glass and enjoy a tall glass ofHawaiian Dickon this cold winter day.

B. Clay Moore:NBC haspicked up the rightstoHawaiian Dick, and we’re in the process of developing it right now.

Writers Paul Lovett and David Elliott are working on the pilot script as we speak. Among others, Johnny Knoxville is on board to produce the show. Knoxville was attached toHawaiian Dickyears ago when the film rights were optioned by New Line, so getting him back on board was big.

How long have you been sitting on this news yourself?

Well, we’ve been working on the television stuff for about a year and a half. Things really came together in the past two or three months. It’s always hard to sit on news you’re happy to report, though.

On to the Kickstarter — is this a new adventure for Byrd?

This is actually a series of stories starring Byrd and the supporting cast that we’ve introduced over the years, as well as a variety of pieces by various artists. While I wrote most of the stories, I invited some friends to contribute their takes, as well.

You all know Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz even if you think you don’t! Dan and Fernando have been taking care of the Archie Comics characters for years now and thisKickstarter Korneris dedicated to their latest creator owned project,Die Kitty Die!

By the time you read this on Wednesday, they’ve reached their goal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t contribute. On the contrary, the model for this Kickstarter is that the rewards get better as the stretch grows.

Dan took the time to talk to us today about this very exciting new universe of characters and the world of Kitty Ravencraft, comic book hero and real life witch who is being hunted down by her greedy comic book publisher inDie Kitty Die!

FOG!:Dan, congratulations on the funding, it looks like it is going pretty well so far!

Dan Parent:Yeah, we’re at 71% (at time of interview) which is pretty good for our third day! We want to hit our goal but we want to go over because we are going to add more incentives, we’ll add pages to the book. The more money, the better the project gets.

Tell those out there that don’t know, what isDie Kitty Die!?

Die Kitty Die!is about a comic book character, who in our universe has been around for a long time and her sales are low. Her publisher asks, “What are we going to do to generate publicity or sales? We’ve got to kill her off”!

In our world it’s a little different because in our world the characters are also real. So, they have to really bump her off.

Not just bump her off in the story, they really have to get rid of her.

Things get a little more complicated because Kitty is a witch, so how do you kill a witch?

FOG!:Thanks for joining us, Jamal! We’re pumped to see thisKickstarter go live, and of course it is always a pleasure to check in with you. How are things?

Jamal Igle:I’m good, just busy as usual. I’m still finishing up some work for various publishers while running the Kickstarter, so it’s my standard juggling act.

For those that don’t know — care to tell fans what is so special about Molly Danger? I mean besides being an inspirational pre-teen hero for all ages?

Molly is a girl who seems to have it all: Fame, fortune, superpowers but underneath that she’s a very lonely girl.

Her seeming immortality keeps her separate from the average person.

While she loves her life, she wonders what it would be like to be normal.

So for me, Molly is an awesome opportunity for me to explore a character who is searching for her self.

It’s a lot of fun to explore.

We all can understand a busy workload — how is it balancingAction Lab Entertainmentresponsibilities with working on this new volume ofMolly Danger?

Like I was saying before, at this point I’m used to it.

My freelance workload is easily as heavy, but working onMollyisn’t a chore, or a job, its personal. That makes the late nights and all of the logistics for putting a project like this together worth it.

We love it when a campaign comes together! With over $10k raised for friend of the FOG!, Dirk Manning’s new Tales of Mr. Rhee Karmageddon.

Our Hero Mr. Rhee has paranormal abilities and in this volume heads out to protect a family of orphans in what becomes quite an interesting road trip. Demons, monsters and Cthulhu all make an appearance in this post-armageddon world.

Here’s Dirk to stretch out that origin story and tell us about the rest of his campaign!

FOG!: Dirk! Thanks so much for taking off your mask and revealing yourself to us for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon” in this Kickstarter Korner!

DIRK MANNING: Thanks for having me here, dude! It’s a pleasure!

You see, normally we get ahead of these campaigns, or get in on the ground floor, or the home stretch. You’ve really done it, man. You reached your goal already! How did you do it, man? Mysticism? The occult?

Honestly? I’m blown away by how quickly things have escalated with the Kickstarter for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon.” We hit our funding goal of $6,666 dollars in under eight hours, and as I type this – six days into the campaign – we’re already only a few hundred dollars away from our THIRD stretch goal! What can I say? Horror comic fans are very passionate and very dedicated!

Well, that, and being a devoted acolyte of The Great Cthulhu doesn’t hurt, either. [laughs]

Mega Ran: The doc got such great reviews that all we needed was more, quite frankly.. I went and found old footage, interviewed some of my heroes in the scene and I think it ties up the Mega Ran story, that’s so hard to explain to people most times, perfectly!

Maybe we should back up. What is it you do for those unfamiliar out there? You rap about video games, right?

I rap about life, mostly, but from a few unique perspectives, most notably, the eyes of video game characters.

A lot of what I do is video game related for sure, It’s probably where I feel most comfortable.

Joe Martino:Well, I created Cyberine before Shadowflame. I always liked patriotic characters like Captain America so I wanted to create one like that. But I didn’t want him to look like a flag.

I figured what’s better than Marines Red and Gold? Originally he was in Vietnam and he got blown up on his way home. But, as time went on Desert Storm made more sense and then Afghanistan. In Shadowflame I actually call it the Second Gulf War meaning the 2004 Afghanistan war.

In issue 4 I added a few characters to the team. Crimson, Caress and Barrel. Along with Cyberine and Agent Napalm, they make the core of the group. There are others that we will see later and some that really aren’t very nice.

To me it is a bit like The Avengers if they were formed by the government and run by Professor Xavier. The Marine part of the group is very boot camp/Danger Room and we will see the group go through some serious issues.

From recent oysters Undertow to Low to classics like Namor the Sub-Mariner, the ocean depths are rich subject matter for comic books.

Canadians Ricky Lima and David A. Bishop are culling the deep for an original graphic novel. The Kickstarter Staff pick is nearly funded for Deep Sea, and the guys are here to tell us about it before they poetically reach their final goal.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today. Just finished the book, it truly was a different kind of story. Care to share about the origin of Deep Sea?

Ricky Lima:Deep Sea started from my desire to collaborate with David. He does some great work and I just wanted to get in on the ground floor of David’s Super Stardom. I approached him with the idea of doing a very small minimal book and he was interested.forces of geek

We decided to make the entire thing red and blue and the idea for the story came from that color scheme.

After the book was so incredibly well received we decided it’d be in our best interests to make a longer sequel.

Among the awesome rewards available in this Kickstarter-exclusive release, supporters can actually have artwork printed in the book.

Justin joins us today to talk about the campaign and what sets a PaperFilms project apart from the others in this interview promoting the Sex & Violence Volume 2 Kickstarter that’s running right now.

FOG!: Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today to talk about your Kickstarter for Sex & Violence #2. What does Kickstarter mean for PaperFilms?

Justin Gray: Kickstarter provides opportunities for us to create work that might not otherwise find a publisher. I believe it also provides us the opportunity to help grow an audience for material that would struggle in a mainstream marketplace, which is dominated by a specific genre.

Nick Bertozzi’s sixth issue of the Ignatz & Harvey Award winning series Rubber Necker is in the fundraising stage over at Indie Go Go.

The first issue (2003) has sold out, and one of the only way you can get a PDF is by donating to the campaign. The anthology book containing his own work, Nick’s first ongoing series, includes the highly praised Drop Ceiling strip, exploring the relationship a young man has with his father and his family business.

Funding goes to printing and shipping hard copies of the book — a limited run — be sure to check out the campaign today.

On top of that, he chose many different artists to tell the story, giving the book an anthology feel. We spoke to Faro about the book, the Kickstarter campaign and the secrets of Abraham Lincoln.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today! Your pitch for Chronicles of Faro describes the book as James Bond meets Quantum Leap. Care to tell our readers what to expect?

Faro Kane: My two greatest influences growing up were James Bond movies that my father insisted I watch along with the obsession with time travel I gained from watching Quantum Leap. On Quantum Leap, the main character was a brilliant scientist who is able to leap into different people scattered throughout time. Each week he altered the lives of random people time and again, surviving death and love and confusion from having his mind meld with the people he’s “leaped” into.

While Dr. Sam Beckett changed minor history for the better, I always wondered how it would go down if someone altered a MAJOR event in time. While good would evolve, wouldn’t evil play the same game?

So I took the main character of FARO and gave him the persona of Professor Francis Kane, a 40 something instructor at The National Academy of Science (founded in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln) who destroys his career and sells his soul to achieve time travel.

The James Bond part comes in after time travel is achieved, where our older hero finds himself 20 years younger and the pawn of an elite circle of time traveling terrorists (like SPECTRE) I envision FARO as the James Bond, his sidekick MUZIO the MAULER as the Felix Leiter, Johnny Olives as Q and eventually the surviving Abe Lincoln as M.

This edition of Kickstarter Korner kicks the Can with Dan Hosek and also, apparently Keith Koppenhoefer, who jumped in so as not to be silenced any more!

File 13 is a fun retro superhero comic looking for that last boost to make a childhood dream a reality.

Consider your pledges after the jump!

FOG!: Dan, thanks for taking the time to tell us about File 13! What’s the general scoop?

Dan Hosek: Thanks for having me, Clay.File 13 is a full-color, monthly series about Scott Solson’s high tech, high adventure “hero’s journey” (with a healthy dose of absurdist humor thrown in). The stories draw on equal parts classic superhero storytelling, pop culture references, high drama, science fiction, and historic events that are stranger than fiction.

At its best, it will drop your jaw then make you laugh three pages later. Its also the culmination of a 30 year journey for me and this character. I created the basis for the book—well, the book now hardly resembles anything like what I created when I was 12, but the basic characters are there.

Bret and I met over the weekend at the strangest place, a crafts fair in his hometown of Worcester, MA, just minutes after a fender bender outside, and in a room with local Celtic punk bands playing amidst tables loaded with cupcakes, taxidermy, necklaces and pins.

His new book takes on Alice in Wonderland and puts her Alice where she should be, a strong hero and her adventures after she returns home. Bret’s Indiegogo campaign runs until June 20th.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us, Bret! What’s new in Wonderland?

Bret M. Herholz: Thank you Clay! Quite a lot has happened actually! The story I’ve written picks up whereAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland left off.

We come to find out that all of Alice’s adventures weren’t all just a dream. The Queen of Hearts found a way to break through to Alice’s reality and her army has taken over the world.

Alice manages to escape with the help of some of the friends she has made in her adventures down the rabbit hole such as the Mad Hatter, March Hare and White Rabbit. The bulk of the story takes place six years later with a now 16 year old Alice continuing her fight against the Queen of Hearts.

Last week saw the debut of JC De La Torre and Ray Dillon’s Star Mage from IDW. We caught up with JC for a MIGHTY Q&A about his influences, the Kickstarter process and merging a classic war-in-space tale with magic to give us an identifiable teenage hero!

Clay N. Ferno: Thanks for joining us, JC! Care to tell us how you got from Kickstarter to IDW with Star Mage? It seems like the response so far is spectacular!

JC De La Torre: Thanks so much for having me. It was such an interesting process to get to where we are now. The story of Star Mage actually started out as a novella that I was dissatisfied with. It just didn’t feel like it was coming together as I hoped. I happened to be reading an IDW Doctor Who comic and that dim light bulb of mine had a momentary flicker and I realized that Darien’s story belonged in a visual medium — what better place than with comics?

I started doing research and whatnot. I knew I wanted high quality artwork and I can barely manage stick figures — so I needed to hire an artist. I went through several potentials before realizing that if I truly want the best art, I needed to pay for a pro. I found Ray Dillon and he was exactly what I was looking for. I paid for the first issue out of my own pocket but to continue the series we were going to need some help, so we turned to Kickstarter. If our Kickstarter failed, Star Mage would have been DOA. It was thanks to those supporters, my defenders of the realm as I like to call them, we kept the lights on and allowed us to continue to develop the series.

IDW knew of the project thanks to Ray, who had previously done work with them and got some of the artwork of Issue #1 in front of Chris Ryall of IDW. There were a ton of starts and stops in the first year and a half developing Issue #1. There were days where it truly seemed like we’d never finish — but IDW stood by us through and through. When we finished Issue #1 and realized due to his demanding schedule Ray wouldn’t be able to finish the series, they trusted me to find another artist of the same caliber. Franco Cespedes took over and once we got our first three issues in the can, the IDW machine began churning.

Response to Issue #1 has been overwhelming. We’re very close to a sell-out of our initial run and we just had a signing at Heroes’ Haven Comics in Tampa where the line was out the door, the store sold out of their copies and we actually had to dip into our convention stock to be able to support the masses. The reviews have been mostly positive so it appears to really be well liked.

An alien prison planet Maia lives on the other side of our sun, occupied by killer pumpkins! We don’t see how a pumpkin planet can be more sincere than this one! Space Marines are sent to investigate AWOL prisoners and pesky pumpkins in Combat Jacks!

Mark McKenna: It was around Halloween and something clicked in my mind that Jack O’ Lanterns are meant to be scary, yet there weren’t really any amazing Jack monsters in movies or books that I could think of, with a few exceptions, so along with my son, it became dinner table banter and went on from there.

Most people know you as an inker for the big two and Inkwell Awards Hall of Famer. Is Combat Jacks your first foray into writing?

I have also created and written my kids books,Banana Tail and Friends. But other then those books, this is my first writing for this genre.

Jason Baroody’s pencils are great too, how did you hook up with him and the rest if your art team including our friend John Hunt?

Jason came to me by way of our, at the time, mutual art rep, Bob Shaw. I had met Jason at a few shows, but really didn’t know his work. When we got to talking and he was gung ho to take a shot at it, I believe I flattered him by offering it to him and he told me, in fact, that if he didn’t need to make a living, he’d have worked for free on it just to have the chance to work with me.. so, in essence, flattery gets you everywhere.

I cant recall where I met John Hunt, but I do know he was hungry and multi-talented and you can never have enough guys that have a wealth of digital and artistic knowledge.

We’re blowing that Fogg Horn today for our latest Kickstarter Korner to help out our new friend Scott Fogg with his all ages 60’s science family adventure bookeeking toward its campaign goal for December 1st.

Share the story, delight in its majesty, donate what you can but most importantly listen to what Scott has to say about Phileas Reid Knows We Are Not Alone because he has insights into the future you cannot predict!

Forces of Geek!: Hi Scott! Thanks for joining us for our second Kickstarter Korner. We like to put the focus on some cool comics campaigns that might be ending soon with only a minimal amount of awesome alliteration! First off, tell us who you are and who else is working on Phileas Reid Knows We Are Not Alone?

Scott Fogg: Thanks so much for having me! I’m Scott Fogg and I’m a writer based out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Joining me on this project are Marc Thomas, Dean Trippe, and Vito Delsante.

Have you worked with any of these talented gentlemen before? Vito was the inspiration for our very first Kickstarter Korner! And the art is amazing. We saw the first pages today!

That’s really cool, I didn’t know about that. Sounds like we have a lot in common. Vito is really the one responsible for Phileas Reid existing in this form and medium. We met at Heroes Con and I was telling him about this story I was wrestling with. “I’m having trouble finding my narrative voice,” I said. “I know the story and I know how it looks, but I’m struggling with how to tell this story.”

“You can’t force it,” he said simply. “If it’s a visual story, you need to tell it visually. Make it a comic book.” I had originally thought of this story as a graphic novel but since I can’t draw and don’t have the money to pay an artist, I didn’t think it was possible. I was in the middle of my second draft of Phileas Reid: The Prose Novelwhen Vito assured me, “we can make it happen.”

Forces of Geek caught up with some amazing creators at the recent Rhode Island Comic Con, and one of our favorite books from ComiXology Submit was there!

Today we talk with Joseph Schmalke about Kickstarter secrets, his classic influences and the many reasons you should check outCalamitous Black Devils on ComiXology or wait for the trade in May of next year.

Forces of Geek!: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. How was your Rhode Island Comic Con?

Joseph Schmalke: Rhode Island was a lot fun it had a great crowd. Also Rhode Island was one of the better set up conventions I had been to this year. I’m definitely going back.

Your book Calamitous Black Devils, issues #1 and # 2 are out now. There’s a ton going on in the book from war to zombies, magic and zombies! How can you describe the book to new readers?

It’s a World War II story where an elite brigade of army operatives go behind enemy lines to stop the Nazis from opening a doorway to another world where an ancient god lives that can raise an army of the dead. They succeed in stopping the doorway from opening but get sucked into it and find themselves scattered about a planet at the center of the universe. Now they have to find each other to get home but first they have to battle through hordes of the undead, aliens, mutants, and ancient gods.

In fact, that last day, reaching out for Twitter support was how the goal was reached in the end.

Here’s three campaigns needing some attention this Wednesday, consider backing them with your comic budget!

Mark Texeira’s A Hero’s Death, Vito Delsante’s Stray, and Mike Kennedy’s Super Ego can all use a swift kick!

Mark Texeira’s A Hero’s Death

We ran into Mark Texeira (Ghost Rider, Wolverine, Punisher) this weekend and he had a blast telling us about his latest project, and his first Kickstarter! A Hero’s Death delves into the mystery of the death of a female hero 20 years ago and the consequences since. The hero is gone but not forgotten.

Mark is working with writer Ricardo Sanchez (Resident Evil, Legends of the Dark Knight) for a familiar but completely new to this world super hero book, with fully painted pages. Funding this book in the final days helps get the stretch goals unlocked and will also unlock a dream of master artist Mark Texeira — to have a book published outside of the Diamond ecosystem!